United
Nations—The United Nations and its
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) partners
have called yet again on Israel to immediately
open crossings into the Gaza Strip to give
Palestinians access to desperately needed
materials, especially in view of the coming
winter and rainy season.
Washington—Nearly a year
before Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly went on a
shooting rampage at Fort Hood, terrorism
investigators conducted an “assessment” of him
before deciding he did not pose a threat. After
the shooting, the FBI is doing a new assessment
- of its own conduct. The Army psychiatrist is
believed to have acted alone despite repeated
communi-cations - intercepted by authorities -
with a radical imam overseas, U.S. offi-cials
said Monday. The FBI will conduct an internal
review to see whether it mishandled early
information about the man accused in the bloody
rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 29.
Tokyo—US President Barack
Obama is willing to visit the nuclear-bombed
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while in office
but won’t go there during a Ja-pan trip this
week, he said in an NHK TV interview Tuesday.
“The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are
etched in the minds of the world, and I would be
honoured to have the opportunity to visit those
cities at some point during my presidency,”
Obama said in an exclusive interview. Obama
would be the first US president in office to
visit the Japanese cities, which the United
States attacked with atomic bombs in the final
days of World War II, forcing Japan’s surrender.
Mogadishu—Pirates have
hijacked a Panamanian-flagged ship with 18 crew
off the east coast of Africa, the latest in an
increasing number of at-tacks, a Somali
businessman said Tuesday. A group of Somali
businessmen called the Juba General Trading
Company had hired the al-Mizan to carry cargo
from the United Arab Emirates to Mogadishu, said
Ab-dirisaq Abdulkadir, the head of the
consortium.
ISRAELI and US threats against Iran are growing
louder. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny
Ayalon has accused Tehran of conducting
insincere negotiations and says his country’s
the threatened military option is no bluff. His
warning echoes that of former Deputy Defense
Minister Ephraim Sneh, who maintains that Israel
will strike before the end of this year if the
UN Security Council fails to agree upon
“crippling” anti-Iranian sanctions. Cheering
from the sidelines is Chairman of the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, who says a
nuclear-armed Iran would threaten Israel’s
existence. Secre-tary of State Hillary Clinton
says the US will strengthen the military
capabili-ties of Gulf states in the event Iran
goes nuclear.
